Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

East Africa and Middle East: Humanitarian Aid

The Earl of Sandwich: To ask Her Majesty's Government what estimate they have made of the shortfall in grain allocated to (1) African, and (2) Middle East, countries as humanitarian aid through United Nations agencies in (1) 2022, and (2) 2023.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: The UK Government is closely assessing the food security situation in the Middle East and Africa, including with our international partners. These regions account for most of the 49 million people living a step away from famine are and the 14 countries that are face at least a high risk of political instability from price increases. The pursuit of practical solutions is a key priority for HMG. Over the next three years the UK will direct £3 billion of humanitarian assistance to prevent famine and alleviate suffering. We have already committed funding from this year to UN humanitarian appeals for Somalia (£38.5 million), Yemen (£88 million) and Afghanistan (£286 million). The UK is also the largest overall contributor (£1.4 billion since 2006) to the UN's Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). We welcome CERF's recent £83 million allocation to tackle the disruption to global food markets.

Ukraine: Development Aid

Lord Hylton: To ask Her Majesty's Government whether (1) special, and (2) additional, expenditure (a) for, and (b) on behalf of, Ukraine since February has come from emergency budgets; and if those sources are now used up, where they will draw further spending from.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: The UK has committed £394 million in aid to the current crisis in Ukraine. This will only be met from expenditure within the 0.5% ODA envelope across the financial years 2021/22 to 2024/25. No new money or emergency funding will be provided.

Northern Ireland Protocol

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have received from the First Treasury Counsel in relation to the proposed bill on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: To ask Her Majesty's Government what meetings have taken place between the First Treasury Counsel and Ministers in relation to the proposed bill on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: To ask Her Majesty's Government what consultations have taken place between the Prime Minister and the First Treasury Counsel in relation to the proposed bill on the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon: It is a longstanding convention for governments of all parties not to comment on the fact or contents of government legal advice. As the Foreign Secretary set out in the house on 17 May, we are very clear that this legislation is lawful and justified in international law and we have gone further in providing the house with an overview of our legal position. We believe bringing forward further legislation on this issue to be urgent and essential to protecting the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement.

Department of Health and Social Care

Rare Diseases: Health Services

Baroness Masham of Ilton: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking (1) to improve access to specialist care, and (2) to reduce regional health inequalities, among patients with rare diseases, including those with hereditary angioedema.

Lord Kamall: In February 2022, the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2022 was published, which aims to improve access to specialist care, treatment and drugs for patients with rare diseases, including hereditary angioedema (HAE). The Plan commits to support access to new treatments through programmes such as the Innovative Medicines Fund, while continuing to work with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) on new treatments being assessed. Following the updates made to NICE’s methods and processes, the Plan aims to ensure that NICE continues to support the rapid adoption of effective new treatments for National Health Service patients with rare diseases.The Action Plan also contains actions aimed at addressing health inequalities, including monitoring the uptake of drugs for patients with rare diseases, through measuring the number of people accessing a drug and comparing with the number expected to access it, to ensure equal access to treatment. It also commits to reduce health inequalities in NHS highly specialised services. A copy of the England Rare Diseases Action Plan 2022 is attached. The NHS Commercial Medicines Unit is developing a procurement framework for medicines to treat HAE. It is anticipated the framework will be operational in summer 2022. The NHS Immunology and Allergy Clinical Reference Group will also revise current commissioning policies for HAE treatments to reduce health inequalities in England for these patients.England Rare Diseases Plan 2022 (pdf, 529.6KB)

Rare Diseases

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick: To ask Her Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the devolved administrations about providing additional (1) funding, and (2) support, for those living with rare diseases in the UK.

Lord Kamall: Alignment and coordination of rare disease policy and action plans is facilitated through meetings of the UK Rare Diseases Framework Board, which includes representatives from the devolved administrations. Discussion includes topics such as improving the coordination of care for people living with rare diseases. However, funding is not discussed as it is a devolved matter.

Heart Diseases

Lord Mann: To ask Her Majesty's Government whatassessment they have made of (1) the increase of cases of heart arrhythmia and death after the onset of heart arrhythmia in the last year, and (2) research linking the onset of heart arrhythmia to contracting COVID-19.

Lord Kamall: No specific assessment has been made. However, NHS England and Improvement’s ‘Help us help you’ campaign encourages patients to seek urgent medical help when unwell, including that patients with symptoms of a heart attack should call 999. In February 2022, NHS England and NHS Improvement launched a new campaign to raise awareness of heart attack symptoms.We are currently not aware of evidence suggesting that arrhythmia increases the risk of contracting COVID-19. While infection increases the risk of developing an arrhythmia, particularly for patients with an underlying heart condition, there is evidence that this risk does not continue once the patient has recovered. The National Institute for Health and Care Research has not funded any specific research on a possible link between COVID-19 onset and arrythmia. However, it has supported a study investigating arrythmia as a consequence of COVID-19 disease.

Infected Blood Inquiry

Lord Field of Birkenhead: To ask Her Majesty's Government how many lump sum (1) regular, and (2) discretionary, one-off payments were made between the establishment of the Infected Blood Inquiry in 2017 to July 2018.

Lord Kamall: This information is not held in the format requested. The Infected Blood Inquiry was established in July 2018. The England Infected Blood Support Scheme (EIBSS) is administered by the NHS Business Service Authority and began operation on 1 November 2017. In England, the EIBSS makes regular payments to beneficiaries, paid either monthly or quarterly, a winter fuel payment in Quarter 3 of each year and one-off lump sum and discretionary payments.Data on the number of payments made between November 2017 and March 2018 is not held centrally. However, the following table shows the total payments made in each category between November 2017 and March 2018.Regular payment £10,774,736Lump sum payment £2,634,105Discretionary £1,292,921 The following table shows number of payments and the total payments made in each category between April and July 2018.Regular payment 9,701 payments £11,706,192Lump sum payment 283 payments £3,247,498Discretionary payment 2,352 payments £1,192,842

Department for Work and Pensions

Universal Credit

Baroness Lister of Burtersett: To ask Her Majesty's Government what criteria they are using to select the first 500 universal credit claimants to be migrated other than geographical area.

Baroness Stedman-Scott: The purpose of the Discovery is to work with small numbers of existing benefit claimants from different places across the country to learn how best to smoothly move claimants to Universal Credit. The first 500 claimants span the full range of legacy benefits - including those with a combination of legacy benefits - and are broadly representative of the wider legacy benefit caseloads in Bolton and Medway, respectively.

Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

Marine Protected Areas: Fisheries

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch: To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to prevent marine protected areas from being (1) bottom trawled, and (2) dredged.

Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park: This is a devolved matter and the information provided therefore relates to England only. We have designated over 100 Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) since 2010, so that now 40% of English waters are within the protected area network. We have already committed that the next step is to ensure all of our MPAs are properly managed and supported by our proposed legally binding target under the Environment Act which we are consulting on at present. 98 MPAs in English inshore waters are already protected from damaging fishing activity and we have introduced byelaws in the first four offshore sites, which ban bottom towed gear over sensitive habitats. We have also published a call for evidence relating to the next 13 offshore sites. We are aiming to have all MPAs in English offshore waters protected from damaging fishing activity by 2024.